Jonathan Pollard: 10 things to know

The United States is reportedly considering releasing Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst who was convicted of spying and has been jailed since 1987, as part of on-going Israeli-Palestinean negotiations. Here are 10 things you need to know about Pollard.

1. Pollard, now 59 and who became a Navy analyst in 1979, had part of security clearance revoked years before his 1985 arrest. Within a few months of starting his position, “unauthorized and suspicious contact with an attaché from the South African Embassy,” according to a report from PBS Nova. The incident was never investigated and his clearance was eventually returned.

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2. Pollard, who finished his undergraduate at Stanford University in 1976, had strange behavior on campus that was noted by his peers, as later recalled in a CIA damage assessment report. One USA Today write up of the report included incidents where he “waved a pistol in the air and screamed that everyone was out to get him” and bragged about being an Israeli Mossad agent.

3. That same 1987 CIA damage assessment of Pollard partially declassified in 2012 says Pollard has been rejected in 1978 for a CIA Graduate Fellowship “owing to extensive and recent use of marijuana.”

4. In 1984, Pollard was promoted to the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, specifically the Anti-Terrorism Alert Center. It was at this position where he had access to and eventually passed along at least 800 classified publications and approximately 1,000 cables to Israeli intelligence officer in New York named Avi Sella.

5. Pollard was first arrested in 1985 by FBI agents in Washington, following an unsuccessful attempt to seek refuge at the Israel Embassy, according to The Associated Press. The outlet reports that Pollard, a Naval analyst, leaked thousands of classified documents to Israel who “recruited him to pass along U.S. secrets including satellite photos and data on Soviet weaponry in the 1980s.”

6. According to USA Today, Pollard is the only person in U.S. history to get a life sentence for spying for an ally. The paper noted that Pollard, who spied for 17 months, turned over documents ever other Friday in contacts to handlers in his Washington apartment. The paper reported that the Israelis initially gave Pollard $11,000 in cash and $1,500 a month and purchased diamond sapphire ring his then-fiancee picked out. His salary was later increased to $2,500 a month and gave him an additional $12,000.

7. Pollard’s first wife, Anne Henderson, in 1985 was arrested alongside him and sentenced to five years in prison in 1987. However, she was paroled after 3½ years because of health problems and emigrated to Israel. Pollard, believing he would be in jail for the rest of his life, divorced Anne.

8. Pollard remarried his second wife, Esther who recently told The Jerusalem Post that Pollard, who underwent surgery for complications with his digestive system, is in ill health. “He is still far from his usual articulate self, and far from well,” she said.

9. This recent news isn’t the first time Pollard’s release was sought by Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked for Pollard to be released during a 1998 presidential summit with President Bill Clinton, according to the New York Times. However, Clinton denied Pollard’s release at then CIA Director George Tenet threatened to resign, the outlet reported.

10. Pollard, as a student at Stanford, said his father was a CIA agent who worked in Prague, according to PBS Nova. His father was not a spy. Pollard grew up in South Bend, Ind., where his father Morris, 82, is a “renowned microbiologist at Notre Dame,” according to Newsweek.